


Babysitting the Bats

by Raven_Queen



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Babysitting, Bat Brothers, Bat Family, Big Brother Dick Grayson, Fluff, Gen, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 03:00:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14155194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_Queen/pseuds/Raven_Queen
Summary: Dick was in charge of watching over his siblings while Bruce was off-world for the day due to some top-secret Justice League mission. It should have been easy. He’d done this a million times before. Except today, his siblings decided they wanted to have a war in the manor, and because he was in charge… it was his job to step in and stop it before it got out of control. A job he was failing spectacularly at.





	Babysitting the Bats

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. This is my first work in this fandom and my first work I'm posting, so if I get something wrong please tell me. I want to be as accurate as possible, so if something doesn't line up character wise let me know.
> 
> Enjoy!

Dick’s head hurt, and not just because of the bump that he could feel on his skull. He’d one job. One. All he’d had to do was watch his siblings for the day – a job he’d done more times than he could count – but no. Apparently, his siblings couldn’t be fucking normal and keep their shit together for twenty-four hours. No, they’d decided they wanted to have an all-our war in the Manor.

It was Damian’s fault. Or Tim’s. He still wasn’t quite sure. All he knew was that the two had been arguing over something, a normal enough occurrence that Dick had only tuned one ear into the conversation, and then suddenly they were screaming at each other and Damian was challenging Tim to a duel.

At _that_ point he’d stepped in. There’d been enough duels involving Damian that he knew they didn’t usually end well. More often than not someone ended up with a stab wound and a new scar – and that was one of the tamer outcome.

So he’d broken them up, sending them to opposite sides of the Manor, and then started to watch his movie again. 

Dick snorted. He couldn’t even remember what movie he’d been watching anymore. Some old one that Bruce had shown him as a kid, one that he knew his siblings hated. He knew by now that if he put on one of those types of movies, his siblings would leave him alone, a fact that he often took advantage of. 

One that didn’t work in his favor today, since Tim and Damian had decided that the only way to solve their disagreement was to recruit their siblings into teams and start all out warfare as they fought across the Manor. 

As far as he knew, Damian had gotten Jason and Cas, while Tim and gotten Steph and Babs. Then Damian had slunk into the room, a too-big smile on his face, and asked him to join his team. Which he’d said no to, and then gotten up to stop the whole mess before it started. 

Which was the exact moment Damian hit him across his damn _head_ and then tied him to this damn chair.

When he got out, he was going to grab the demon brat and sit on him for a couple hours. That’ll teach him to knock him out with… whatever it was he’d used.

But first he had to get out. And stop the war that he could hear raging upstairs.

It took a solid ten minutes to get out of the binds Damien – and no doubt Cas, if the handy work of it was any indication – put him in. The entire time he heard shouts from upstairs, the fire of nerf guns, and the splattering sound of a paintball gun. Dick sighed. He was going to have to put on his suit for this.

The chains finally fell off, and he stood up with a shout of triumph. Finally. Now – time to take down his siblings.

Within a matter of minutes he was suited up and armed to the teeth: more smoke bombs than he could count, multiple grappling guns to tie his siblings up, and his escrima sticks if they got a little too out of hand. He didn’t particularly want to smack his siblings with the metal sticks, but war was war. Besides, they could handle a few bruises. 

Quietly he slunk up the stairs of the Bat Cave. He’d go for Jason first. He’d be the most bothersome, with the paintballs and nerf guns, since he was the best shot of all of them by far. No doubt he was hiding in some high up place, a sniper hidden in the metaphorical trees. Unfortunately for Jason, he knew all his hiding spots.

In a matter of minutes he’d reach the main fray of what had once been their living room. Now… well, it looked like a warzone.

All the furniture was flipped over, creating makeshift forts and barriers to hide behind as they fired at one another. Paint stained the entire area, from the floor to the furniture to the walls to the decorations – he even thought he saw some on the ceiling. No doubt misfired shots. One’s that were going to be a pain to clean up once this was over.

Scanning the room Dick found his siblings split he room, each team taking a side, with the large windows that showed one of the gardens as their backdrops. Windows that were covered in paint. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He’d deal with cleanup later. Right now he just had to round up his siblings and throw them into the cell they kept in the Bat Cave.

Tim’s team had taken the right side, closest to the kitchen – a smart move, since Damian with an endless supply of knives was probably the worst thing that could come out of this. Even if the babybat wouldn’t permanently injure someone, there’d been enough scars in this family from Damian getting just a little over zealous and landing one of his knives in the wrong spot. 

Damian’s team had the left, closest to the council room that Bruce used when he had to have meetings here. Which would be a fairly good place to retreat to, with the large table and multiple exits. But with the way things were going, he doubted Damian was going to need a retreat.

As suspected, Jason was up high, on the banister that circle the living room, hitting his siblings again and again with paintballs – mostly the opposing team, but every now and then he saw him shoot one at Damian. Not at Cas though. Cas didn’t have a lick of paint on her. It seemed Jason knew better than to piss her off.

Dick circled back, climbing up the stairs on silent feet and getting the grappling gun ready. Quick movements: shoot the gun, grab Jason, and dump him into the cell in the Bat Cave, then start rounding up the others and putting them in there with him. A fool proof plan – if he could get them in there.

Well, no time like the present.

He fired the grappling gun at Jason, watching it wrap around him from his shoulders to his feet. Jason swore and turned, but the movement sent him face-planting into the floor – with a lot more swearing. 

Patting his little brother’s chest Dick hauled him back on his feet and said, “Sorry Jaybird, playtime’s over. Time to go to the timeout pen.”

“Timeout pen?” Jay snorted, shuffle walking down the hall. “What am I, eight?”

Dick gave him a pointed look and then looked at the ruined living room below. Jay just sent him a roguish smile and said, “You need to live a little bigbird. Have some fun. It’s not like B can’t replace all of this stuff anyway.”

Dick rolled his eyes and shoved Jason, making him stumble forward a couple steps and nearly fall on his face again. Jay sent him a glare over his shoulder and said, “Not cool, Grayson.”

“Don’t care, Todd,” Dick shot right back. They made it to the Bat Cave and with another shove he pushed Jason into the cell. And then he closed and locked the door. Walking around to the control panel in front of the large window of the cell, he clicked the loud speaker and said, “Get comfortable in their littlewing. It might take a while for me to round up the others.”

“Damian and Cas will break me out,” Jason called back confidently, crossing his arms. The rope already lay on the floor. 

Dick shrugged. “I changed all the overrides so that it only keys to my voice, and I have to say a specific set of words, so if they come by tell them I wish them luck.”

Jason cursed and sat down on the floor, leaning his head against the wall. Dick just smiled and walked out of the room. One bat down, five to go.

A smoke bomb in each hand, Dick walked straight into the living, made sure that they all saw him, and threw the bombs and called, “Alright listen up! Games over! Jason’s already in timeout, so if you don’t want to join him in there give up now! This is your one and only chance!”

There was only silence as the smoke filled the room. Then Damian’s voice, loud and clear, screamed, “Regroup at the rendezvous!”

He heard shuffling, no doubt Cas and Damian taking off for whatever spot they’d decided was their rendezvous. Shaking his head he called, “Tim, Steph, Babs, I know you’re still here. Give up now and I won’t lock you up with Jason.”

He waited. At least Babs would probably give up. She was smart, and it wasn’t like–

A nerf bullet hit him right between the eyes, and Barbara’s laugh echoed through the room. “Sorry Boy Wonder,” she called, “but that isn’t going to happen.”

“Scatter and regroup!” Tim called, and the sound of more pounding feet filled the room.

Dick cursed and took off after them. Stupid, immature siblings. Half of them were adults for crying out loud. Hell, _all_ of them were adults, except for Tim and Damian. Couldn’t they act like it? At least when he was the one in charge of making sure that no one lost a damn eye?

A crash sounded to his right, and he lunged for it. His body connected with someone else’s, and after a serious of grunts and flips and punches that were not at all pulled, he ended up on top, breathing hard, and staring into Barbara’s face as she smirked up at him.

“Hello Dick,” she said, light dancing in her eyes.

“Hello Babs,” he said back, sending her a wide grin. “Would you like to join Jason now?”

She looked contemplative for a moment – a ruse – but he was fine with it. It wasn’t like she was going to–

In a movement too quick for him to stop, she wrapped her legs around his waist and flipped them. He grunted as his back slammed into the floor. Smiling down at him, she said, “I don’t think so.”

And then she was up and running. He growled and reached out – just fast enough to grab a foot. She thudded to the floor, and as he shot another grappling hook and watched it wrap around her, he told himself that he _really_ had to stop underestimating her. That was two times in less than a minute. He really didn’t need to add a third to that list.

When the grappling line was securely wrapped around her, he threw her over his shoulder and hauled her downstairs. The entire way she made comments about how great his butt looked. She even slapped it a few times, laughing when he tensed up. He bit back on a growl.

With a sigh he pushed her into the cell and shut the door. Clicking on the loud speaker again he said, “Either of you want to tell me where the others would regroup?”

Both looked at each other, and in mutual agreement crossed their arms and stared blankly at him.

Sighing Dick said, “Fine. We’ll do it the hard way.”

Grabbing another grappling gun on his way out, he headed for the rendezvous spot that was listed last on Damian’s list – Tim’s room.

Which, given that Tim would never think that Damian would be stupid enough to rendezvous in his own room, was actually the perfect spot. 

Sure enough, when he got to the room, he heard voices inside. Except instead of the two he’d expected, he heard four. Well, well, it seemed they were trying to team up against him. An admirable effort – one that wouldn’t work, but an admirable effort.

He opened the door and threw a smoke bomb. Shouts erupted and they turned back to back, ready to fight. All it did was make it easier for him to round them up. He shot a grappling gun, winding it around all four of them at once, and watched in satisfaction as the stumbled and fell to the ground in a tangle of rope and limbs.

When the smoke had cleared all four were grumbling as they sat on the floor, yelling and cursing and blaming one another. Dick just took a deep breath, shot a second grabbling gun at them just in case, and started hauling them all down to the Bat Cave.

He shoved them into the cell, watching as Jay and Babs had to catch them to keep all six of them from tumbling to the floor. He smiled broadly at his siblings through the glass, even as they glared at him, and clicked on the loud speakers. “Alright punks, you have two options: you either clean up and replace everything that got ruined in your little war, or I tell Bruce exactly what went down here and watch him chew all of you out for having another war inside the house.”

They winced – all except Damian, he jutted his chin up and said, “Don’t forget that if you tell Father what happened you admit that you couldn’t control us. He’ll yell at you as much he yells at us.”

“I’m pretty sure he won’t, since you knocked me out and tied me up down here,” Dick said, smirking as shock flicked across the other’s faces, including Cas. Seems she hadn’t help Damian tie him up after all. That, or she was just a really good actor. 

Barbara rounded on him and said, “You said he went out!”

“No, I said he wasn’t in the Manor,” Damian said. “Technically the Bat Cave isn’t in the Manor. It’s under it.”

Barbara fumed. The others though, looked like they could care less. Except for maybe Tim. He looked a little angry at being lied to.

“What will it be?” Dick asked, raising an eyebrow. “Bruce will be home in under twelve hours. If you plan to clean up the mess, you’ll need to start now.”

“Huddle,” Jason called. 

All of the clumped together, heads inches apart as they screamed and argued about what to do. Dick just leaned back in his chair, content to wait. He’d been a part of those huddles enough to know that it’d take a while for them to finally come to a decision.

When they finally split apart, it was Barbara who said, “We’ll clean up our mess.”

“Good choice,” Dick said, and hit the release button and said, “My siblings have no self-control.”

The door popped open with a burst of air, and out walked the six of them, in vary degrees of dishevel, most of them covered in paint. Shaking his head Dick said, “Go clean up first. You all look like a kindergarten art project gone wrong.”

Half of the glared at him. Two of them flipped him off. Jason told him to kiss his paint covered ass. 

But they all walked off and cleaned up before showing up in their comfiest clothes and got to work on cleaning up. And because Dick was never good at sitting on the sidelines and watching, he grabbed a sponge and started scrubbing off the paint stains with the others.

 

Bruce Wayne returned to the manor early the next morning, walking up the steps with no short amount of apprehension of what he was going to find inside. He knew his kids. They weren’t the type to just sit there and have a good day. Hell, if all that had happened was an argument and a few hurt feelings, he’d call yesterday a win.

Warily he pushed the doors open, and found the room spotless. Too clean. There’d been some sort of mess, one that they’d cleaned up until nothing showed. Cautiously he walked into the living room, expecting to see a warzone. Instead he found all his kids piled on the couches and chairs, popcorn spread out between them, watching one of those old movies that they claimed to hate.

They all looked at him as he walked in, shouting varying degrees of welcome in varying degrees of volume. Bruce couldn’t help the small smile that spread across his face. “Any problems while I was gone?”

They looked at each other, sharing a look that he knew meant trouble, and replied in unison, “Nope.”

He looked between all of them, with their too-big smiles, and then at the too-clean room surrounding him. And then walked out of the room. With his kids, he probably didn’t want to know what sort of trouble they’d gotten up to yesterday.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comments below!


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